Beavers trades jabs with area Democrats

Gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Mae Beavers traded barbs last weekend with the Davidson County Democratic Party that centered on Beavers’ blocking people from her Twitter feed and same-sex marriage.

Beavers, R-Mt. Juliet, released her own press release Saturday afternoon in response to a press release from the Davidson County Democratic Party that alleged she could be breaking federal law and violating the First Amendment by blocking some Twitter users.

The press release in question could be, in fact, a link to a story from slate.com posted by Davidson County Democrats on Twitter regarding a recent federal court decision on Davison v. Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in which U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris ruled the elected official violated the First Amendment by blocking the plaintiff in the case.

“If blocking hateful trolls who tweet profanity and obscene images constitutes viewpoint discrimination,” Beavers said in her release, “then I’d be more than happy to slug it out in federal court.

Beavers then continued to defend her conservative stance on social issues, particularly same-sex marriage. On June 24, the Davidson County Democratic Party tweeted a photograph that featured a drag queen attempting to impersonate Beavers during “Nashville Pride.”

The tweet was captioned, “What an honor to have gubernatorial candidate Mae Beavers and her private security guards at #NashvillePride today!”

Beavers also said her head on a spike in the photograph is “a lot like what Kathy Griffin did to Trump.”

The Davidson County Democratic Party tweeted a copy of Beavers’ press release Saturday, which garnered dozens of responses from people, many of whom used the hashtag #BlockedbyMae. Beavers was previously greeted by about a dozen Wilson County Democratic Party protesters when she announced her campaign in May at Charlie Daniels Park in Mt. Juliet.

Davidson County Democrats also responded on Twitter to Beavers’ “head on a spike” comment.

“As a side note, we’re guessing Mae’s not a huge fan of @CollegeGameDay either? #BlockedByMae #ItsCalledASign #SpendMoreTimeWithNormalPeople,” the tweet said.

“Marriage is a biblical issue,” Beavers said in her release, “that should be handled in the church, not the courts and certainly not at the federal level.

“The Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which violates 31 state constitutions, as the late Justice [Antonin] Scalia noted at the time, lacked ‘even a thin veneer of law’ and took the court’s ‘reputation for clear thinking and sober analysis’ to the level of ‘the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.’”

On Jan. 16, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court consolidated four same-sex marriage cases challenging state laws that prohibited same-sex marriage, including Tanco v. Haslam in Tennessee. On June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court held in a 5–4 decision that the 14th Amendment requires all states to grant same-sex marriages and recognize same-sex marriages granted in other states. The White House was illuminated in rainbow colors on the evening of the ruling.

According to the Court’s opinion analysis on the case, prior to Obergefell, 36 states, the District of Columbia and Guam already issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples.